Herbie Goes to Camp Halfblood
by T. R. Myers
Summary: Sally decides that Percy really needs to start driving himself to his battles to the death.  When Percy buys a beat up old 63' Volkswagen Beetle, he gets more than he bargained for, and so do two clever monsters from Tartarus.


Chapter 1

My First Car Kidnaps Me

Strange things happen around me. Like when I was twelve, my math teacher grew wings and tried to deep-fry me like KFC's original recipe. That was when I learned that I was a demigod. We have one mortal parent, but the other parent is a god. I'm the son of Poseidon, the Sea God. Well, after that, the next few years of my life weren't a whole lot of fun...well, I mean, some of it was fun. Okay, a lot of it was fun. I mean, how many kids do you know who get to carry a special monster slaying sword disguised as a ball point pen, or ride in Apollo's chariot and rescue his sister, Artemis from the Titan Atlas?

Of course, I totally demolished every school I ever went to, and never got to stay longer than a year at one. That kind of sucks. I mean, it isn't my fault that I'm a monster magnet. Well, during the summer, I go to a camp for half-bloods, called Camp Halfblood. I know, original, right? Well, life has been pretty hectic. My very first year at Camp Halfblood, I got a quest. I was accused of stealing Zeus's master lightening bolt and turned out that it was all part of a plot by Kronos, the Lord of Time, to over throw the gods and reestablish himself as the evil overlord of all Earth, which would have totally sucked.

Luke, son of Hermes, who I thought was my friend, turned out to be a traitor helping Kronos. He tried to invade Camp Halfblood by poisoning Thalia's tree. I should mention that Thalia was a daughter of Zeus. She came to Camp Halfblood with Luke and my girlfriend, Annabeth, and fought to the death. Zeus was so sorry for her, he saved her life by turning her into a pine tree (I never will understand why he didn't just save her life by, umm...saving her life). Well, she came back after I got the Golden Fleece from the Sea of Monsters, but she joined the Hunters of Artemis later (long story). Anyway, Luke even tried to use the Labyrinth to get into Camp HalfBlood. As in Theseus and the Minotaur.

Well, after Annabeth and I finally defeated Kronos, or rather, Luke got a clue and realized that Kronos was totally off the deep end, Annabeth and I realized we actually kind of liked each other in that more than just we-fought-side-by-side-with-swords-against-ugly-drool-monsters way. Well that was on my sixteenth birthday and it was then that my my mom decided that I was a little too old to have her driving me to my battles to the death. Now, my mom came into a little bit of money when I first learned the truth about who I am, but that all went to a nicer apartment and mom going to college, so it wasn't like I was going to get a Maserati Spyder. That being said, I was a little surprised when mom took me to the junkyard and we picked out a 1963 Volkswagen.

I said that wrong. We didn't pick the Volkswagen out. It picked us. For some reason, it's horn went off, which was how I first noticed it. When we realized it still ran, although with a nasty knock, and a bent drive shaft, we knew it was dependable. When we paid for him, I could have sworn it smiled. I had it towed to Camp Halfblood, and the activities director, Chiron agreed to let me fix it up as a project. The car was stored in the camp garage with the camp van that Argus, head of camp security usually took campers to the bus station in so they could go on their quests.

Annabeth had been given the job of redesigning Mount Olympus after the war, so I was a little surprised to see her at camp. She would be going back and forth between camp and Mount Olympus. Apparently, she was assisting Chiron with the reorganizing of camp. She was the first to see the car.

"What?" I asked her.

She shook her head and said, "Nothing." She was starting to smile funny. "It just looks so cute."

"Cute?" It was a car.

"Cute."

Well, the car wasn't the only one. Annabeth had blond hair tied in a pony tail and stormy gray eyes. Over all, she looked like her mother, Athena. Yeah, I'm saying Annabeth looks like a goddess.

"Does it run?" she asked.

"Yeah, but it shakes a lot and won't stay running. They guy at the junk yard says it's got a bent drive shaft."

"You should have your brother or some of the guys from Hephaestus cabin have a look at it."

"Yeah," I said. I figured I'd start working on it tomorrow. The car still struck me as odd though. I'd swear it had moved away from the van. Annabeth noticed too. As we left the garage, she looked over her shoulder.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I'd swear that car just winked at me."

The car didn't attract a lot of attention, except from the Ares cabin. Clarisse, as usual, was her regular pit bull self. She said she could just look at it funny and it would fall apart. Sure, she ticked me off, but I couldn't stay mad at her. Over the years, we had saved each others lives and she had proven herself to be a warrior of true valor. Funny, I could swear the car had an even stronger reaction to her insults than I did. The car didn't look any different, but the more Clarisse insulted it, the more...angry it seemed.

That night at dinner, Mr. D gave announcements, and of course he didn't miss a beat. "And Peter Johnson has seen fit to start a scrap metal business at camp. I wish him all the best but if that car isn't running and out of my garage by the end of the week, I'm going to turn it into a bowling ball and Mr. Johnson will be the first pin." The Ares table was howling with laughter. Chiron, for his part, kept the peace. He was in his wheel chair now, looking like my old Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, but I knew the wheelchair was just a magical disguise. Chiron was actually a centaur and the wheelchair just hid his horse body.

What I really wanted to do was get back to cabin three and get some sleep. I was the only the kid in cabin three. The reason for that was because of the pack between Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades never to have kids again because of some prophecy, a prophecy I ended up fulfilling when I defeated Kronos. I guess that means they won't keep the pact anymore, but I shouldn't have been born. Dad, Poseidon broke it to have me, but in dad's defense, my mom was one in a million. Zeus had broken that rule with Thalia, too. It turns out. Hades was the only who had honored the pact. He had hidden his kids in the Lotus Hotel in Vegas as an insurance policy and to protect them from Zeus, but those kids had been born before the pact had been made.

So I was alone in cabin three, and had no trouble falling asleep. I was sitting in the back seat of my car, but something was wrong. It was new, like factory fresh and there were two guys I'd never met before in the front seat.

"What'd I tell you? Now it handles good," said the passenger.

"All the bugs are gone," said the driver.

"Herbie's all right."

The driver turned to look at his passenger and I could see him for the first time. He was a man in his thirties or forties and he had dark hair, kind of like my mom's boyfriend, Paul Blofis. He was the kind of guy you see lots of girls hanging around and had square, chiseled face, a handsome sort of man. He said, "Who's Herbie?"

"This little car." I got the idea that the passenger was bit simple, but a nice enough guy. I moved to get a better look at him. He was short and kind of pudgy, kind of like Ugly Gabe, my old step father, except this guy looked really nice. He carried on. "My uncle was named Herbie. He used to box middleweight. Preliminary mostly. Gradually his nose got shaped more and more like to remind me of this little car." He laughed. "Do you mind?"

The driver laughed then. "Whatever you say, Tennessee."

Tennessee turned to the driver and said, "You still don't believe me about Herbie being alive. That's okay, Jim. You'll see."

"The only thing I expect to see, Tennessee, is the finish line at Monte Carlo."

"Yeah, you'll see that too. Me and Herbie, we got a strategy worked out."

Jim chuckled, clearly humoring his friend. "I'm sure you do."

When I woke up, I couldn't think about what it was that disturbed me so much about my dream. I just knew that it did. The thing was, I knew that that car could possibly be alive, and yet, I knew they were talking about my car, and there was definitely something strange about it. For once, I didn't tell anyone about my dream, because anyone would have told me that it was just a dream. Well, I did tell Annabeth. After what she told me, I was sure she'd believe me.

She put a hand on the car and petted it. "Herbie, huh? It's a good name. You look like a Herbie."

As Annabeth and I checked the engine and the interior, Troy Martin, a new camper and son of Hephaestus, helped us identify which parts needed replacing.

As it turned out, the drive shaft was fine and the shaking was a deformed pulley. Troy fixed it for us in the cabin nine forge, but the car still needed a lot of work. The interior was destroyed, it needed new windows and the entire car was rust and dirt color. Soon, the car became a whole camp project, with most cabins involved. Once we cleaned it, we found that the body was still good. The paint job was ruined, but we could see it was pearl white, and it had the number 53 on the hood and the doors. A red, white, blue racing stripe went up the front hood, not quite center, but to the right, broke at the windshield and continued over the roof.

Once a week had passed, Mr. D decided not to make good on his threat because the project seemed to have a good effect on the campers, mostly that it kept them out of his hair. Clarisse never missed an opportunity to take a crack at the car. "Hey, Seaweed Brain, how's the go cart coming along?" Herbie usually gave out a positive aura, but whenever Clarisse opened her mouth, the energy around Herbie became downright vicious. She took a walk around the car. "You know, this thing is so pathetic, I'm not sure it could beat me in a chariot race." As she finished speaking, she had made it to one of the rear wheels. A gross squelching noise could be heard and Clarisse's face paled. She looked down. "Oh, gross!"

We all looked down. Clarisse's shoes, socks and some of her exposed leg were drenched in motor oil. Herbie had, well, there was no other way to describe it, marked his territory on Clarisse. Everyone in the garage had started laughing. Clarisse was fuming. Her face was red and purple and she looked like she could pull someone's head off.

She pointed in rage at Herbie and said, "This little car did that on purpose!"

As she stormed out, I asked Troy how that had happened. He said, "Well, it had to be an accident, but I don't see how it could have been. I mean, there are no oil lines there, and it literally squirted out."

Nobody dwelled on the fact that the car only misbehaved whenever Clarisse showed up. She began trying to convince Chiron and Mr. D that the car was a monster in disguise, but neither of them could be convinced. Everyone just kind of looked at her funny. It was a car. How could it do anything on purpose? Clarisse insulted the car a few more times, but then something else happened. She just happened to be standing in front of the engine compartment when it spit oil at her. Chiron had been there when she called it a worthless pile of junk. The car wasn't running, but the exhaust backfired nonetheless...directly in her face, turning her face, her stringy brown hair and most of her buff shoulders black.

I told she should try saying nice things about the car. She glowered at me. In fact, she glowered at the car every time she saw it. Sure, the car was a little pathetic, but it was my car and it needed my protection. I wasn't going to let anyone make fun of me about it. Finally, we got it running perfect. The body was dirty and dingy and needed a paint job. The interior needed to be replaced. Didn't change the fact that I needed to take it for a ride, like now. Chiron and Mr. D were starting to have their doubts and I needed to prove that the car was worth my while or they'd make me send it home, or Mr. D would turn it into a lawn sculpture, whichever came first. Annabeth rode shotgun. Troy insisted on coming along so he could hear how the engine sounded.

I drove down a familiar stretch of road. From the big pine tree, this was where Ugly Gabe's Camaro had crashed, Hades kidnapped my mom and I challenged the Minotaur to hand to hand combat. We drove about a mile out from Manhattan when I decided to turn around.

"I don't know," Troy said, "there's a vibration here that I don't like. Maybe I didn't tighten down something right, but there is definitely an important moving part loose. I wouldn't take Herbie over 35 again. Just nice and slow back to camp."

I figured that wouldn't be a problem. You know, I've got a real talent for being wrong. At a stop sign about five miles camp, this jerk in a new Ford Cobra pulls up alongside me. I don't even know this guy. He calls over, "Hey dork, where did you get that piece of junk?"

Troy shouted, "Careful what you call junk. We're not the ones driving a Ford."

The jock went for his stick and he said, "Yeah, I'll show you who's driving junk."

I wasn't even going to take the bait. Let him get pulled over by the cops. Herbie had other ideas. My clutch and accelerator went down to the floor. I felt like I was suddenly pinned to my seat. I couldn't imagine where this little car with its flat four cylinder engine found all of that horse power, but the front end lifted off the ground until the back bumper was dragging sparks across the asphalt.

"Percy!" shouted Annabeth. "What are you doing?"

Troy said, "Percy, you can't push it like this!" 

For once, I knew exactly what to say. "I'm not doing it! I swear! Look!" The looked and they could both see that both of my feet were on the brake. I looked at my dash and my jaw dropped. We assumed that the speedometer that read up to 200 was joke, but Herbie was doing just under 170. We passed the jerk in the Cobra like he was standing still. I tried to grab the shifter, but it kept pulling away from my hand. I mean, I felt like my car was kidnapping me. I had no control and it was going where it wanted to. On the bright side, Herbie was a pretty good driver.

The speed we were going, by the time we saw anything, we were already passing it, so when I saw another stop sign, I freaked. I don't why I did or why I even thought it would help, but I yelled, "Herbie, stop!" Herbie screeched to a halt right at the white painted line by the stop sign.

We just sat there. After about a minute, the jerk in the Cobra pulled up alongside us, his eyebrows high on his forehead and mouth about as far open as mine and Annabeth's were. "Dude!" he yelled, "you've tricked the little guy out!" He gave a look of definite approval. "Hey, there's a street racing track not far from here. You should enter some races. You can make a lot of money." With that, he drove off.

Still, we sat there. Annabeth's eyes were wide with shock. "The vibration," said Troy, startling us both. "That's what the vibration is. This thing's hiding some horsepower. I don't get it. There's no way this engine should run that fast."

I looked back to Annabeth. "Percy, Clarisse is right. There's something strange about Herbie. I think we should find out what it is before we take any risks in him."

"You're not siding with her on this." I knew she had a point, but I felt, I don't know, protective of Herbie.

"Herbie, I don't mean any offense to you," Annabeth changed her tone as she addressed me, "but Herbie can't talk and we have no way of knowing if he's good or bad."

"He's good," I said immediately, though I wasn't sure why I thought so.

"How do you know?"

"I don't know, but I do, you know?" Oh yeah, that was real articulate. That would be my ADHD and dyslexia. All demigods have problems with that.

"No, I don't."

"It's kind of like one of those things where, you just know, even though you can't explain how you know. I know Herbie is good. I know he wouldn't hurt anyone. If he would have, I'm sure Clarisse would have a lot worse than a few oil stains." Annabeth didn't look convinced, but she accepted that.

Troy said, "Still, we should find out what we can about him. Good or bad, he definitely has a temper and this little stunt just proved it."

On that happy note, we made our way the rest of the way back to camp. We told Chiron what happened and I told him about my dream. He looked very closely at the car, walking around it several times. To Herbie's credit, he didn't do anything strange.

"Percy, it would appear to be a normal Beetle sedan," said Chiron, and thankfully, he didn't look at me funny. "Now that's not to say the vehicle doesn't have any unusual characteristics. They aren't manifesting themselves, and Percy, the vehicle shows no evidence of being a monster, possessed, disguised, mechanical or otherwise. If you would like my advice, you may consider looking up the VIN number. That will usually give you the vehicle's history."

"Sir, you don't think I would have ran this car at 200 miles per hour, do you?" It still sounded crazy.

"Well, Percy, I should hope not, but then, you wouldn't be the first 16-year-old demigod guilty of street racing, and you certainly wouldn't be the last. If you choose to do so, I would take that young man's advice and take it to a controlled environment." He smiled. "Don't worry, Percy. I doubt that even you would have considered this vehicle capable of it."

Annabeth, Troy and I have given the story and it's spreading like wild fire. Aphrodite cabin is even interested and they've decided they're going to help with the paint. Well, the last thing I wanted was for my car to go flower power, but no. The new counselor for Aphrodite cabin decides that since it's a race car, we should restore the original paint job. By restore, she meant completely paint it in its original colors. Before I know it, Herbie looks like a new car, and I could swear he's smiling.


End file.
